Are You New to AYSO?

INTRODUCTION

This page provides a short introduction to AYSO in Beverly Hills.
Much more detailed information about our program is contained all over
this website, but we thought parents would find it helpful if we
summarized, in a few paragraphs, what AYSO is about in Beverly Hills and
elsewhere.

PROGRAM

First and foremost, AYSO provides a recreational soccer program for
children ages 4 through 18. AYSO (American Youth Soccer
Organization) is a national organization with
almost 600,000 registered players and 200,000 registered volunteers. It
delivers programs through individual units called Regions. Beverly Hills
is Region 76. The regions are grouped into Areas and Sections. Beverly
Hills belongs to Area
1-P, the other regions of which are in central and
western Los Angeles County. Area P in turn is part of
Section 1, which covers Los
Angeles County, the Inland Empire all the way to Nevada, as well as
parts of Nevada.

In Beverly Hills,
our program has over 2300 players and operates in a regular season that
begins on the Saturday after Labor Day in September and ends in
mid-December.

Although we play in Beverly Hills, we accept registrations no matter where
you live.

AYSO PRINCIPLES

AYSO was founded on five six principles which affect every aspect our
program. They are:

Everyone Plays!

Open Registration

Balanced Teams

Positive Coaching

Good Sportsmanship

Player Development

"Positive coaching" and "good sportsmanship" speak for themselves, but the
first three need some explanation:

"Everyone Plays"
means that every player on every team must receive a guaranteed amount
of playing time. The national minimum is half the game, but in our
region we require a minimum of three quarters, with some exceptions.

"Open Registration" means that we
accept every player who registers, provided we have space in the
relevant age group. Although we evaluate players, the only reason
we do this is to assure â€œBalanced Teamsâ€� by assigning players to teams
that we strive to make as even as we can.

"Balanced Teams" are not so
important when the children are 4, 5, 6 and 7, but once they reach the age
of 8 years old, they are playing on larger teams and fields and balance
becomes critical. The result is that, at this age, we generally do
not grant or even consider requests for players to play together or to
be assigned to a particular coach. Teams are put together every
year â€“ they do not continue on from one year to the next.

"Player Development" means that we emphasize development of
age-appropriate technical and tactical skills and pure love of the game
rather than winning at all costs. We want our players to improve
through practice and opportunity to learn from committed coaches whose
primary goal is to help players to get better.

VOLUNTEER PROGRAM

At the regional level, AYSO is an all-volunteer program. All of our
coaches, team administrators, program administrators – everyone is a
volunteer. Unlike Little League or basketball, we do not pay referees –
they too are volunteers.

Participation in AYSO cannot be made conditional on your volunteering
but, unless nearly everyone volunteers to do something, we would not be
able to function.

We offer extensive training programs for all our volunteers, especially
coaches and referees.

Our policy since 2004 will be to require teams to provide at least two volunteers to train and
participate as referees. Your child's team may be ineligible for the elimination stage of our
playoffs if your team does not provide referees to the program.

TEAMS, GAMES AND PRACTICES

Teams are divided into groupings by age called divisions. The
youngest divisions span on year and the other divisions span
two years; except the oldest division, U19, which spans three years.

Age is determined on July 31 before the season begins. A player
must be at least 4 years old on that date and cannot have
reached the age of 19. Only in very rare cases can we register players
who are too young and we absolutely cannot register a player who is 19
or older.

A full listing of our divisions and age groups is available. We often allow players to
move up to be with their classmates - this most often happens in Beverly
Hills for players born in August through November, because the school
cutoff date is December 1.

The program for high school age players is slightly different.
Teams play two games a weekend but the season ends in mid-November so as not to
conflict with high school soccer.

Every team also has one mandatory practice a week (except for the very
youngest players, 4 and 5 years old. Practices can take place on a
fixed day and time each week. These times are assigned to teams after
the teams have been formed, so there is no point asking for assignment
to a team that practices on a particular day.

Team and field sizes are as follows:

Division

Team Size

Format

Field size

U6 and U8

12 to 14

Teams play 4 against 4

Two games concurrently on adjacent mini-fields

U9 and U10

11 or 12

Teams play 7 v 7

70
x 45 yards

U12
and U14

14 or 15

Teams play 11 v 11

Full size fields

U16
and U19

target 17 - 18; max 22

Teams play 11 v 11

Full size fields

Note: AYSO National recommends 9 v 9 in U12. We have so
far been unable to implement this because of extreme shortages of
fields for games and practices (9 v 9 means a 25% increase in the
number of games and practice fields slots). We intend to move
to 9 v 9 if the field situation improves and we can recruit
sufficient qualified coaches.

For our players 8 to 13 years old, there is also a tournament season
which starts with a tournament on Thanksgiving weekend and then
continues, in one form or another, through June.
Players 14 and up may also play on tournament teams once the high
school soccer season ends in late February.
These tournaments, with the exception of our own Beverly Hills
Sportsmanship Cup, all involve travel to other regions, because we
have no access to fields between January and August to run our own
local programs.

WHERE DO WE PLAY?

All of our games and practices take place at public parks or schools in
Beverly Hills and nearby areas, including La Cienega Park, Roxbury Park and Beverly Hills
High School, El Rodeo School, Hawthorne School and Horace Mann School.

Upper division games are played in Beverly Hills and also at various Area P
locations.

REGISTRATION AND FEES

We start registering players for the Fall Season in the preceding
December. Registration is done on-line and can be done at any time
until June. After June 1, we start to fill up to the point where there
is some chance you won’t have room and the later you leave it, the more
likely you will be out of luck. We don’t give preference to returning
players after June 1.

In 2012, we are charging $200 for players who register on or before June 1,
2012. After that,
the fee rises to $250, but we maintain the $200 fee for new players
under the age of 8 and for recent arrivals in Beverly Hills. We also held a
short annual early bird special which has already passed for 2012.

Our fees include a uniform - jersey, shorts and socks - you must buy shinguards
and shoes (sneakers OK but everyone wants to play in cleats). The fee also
includes team and individual photos, buttons, trophies and a yearbook.

We have a full refund policy for players
who withdraw before they play or who are not placed on teams.
Partial refunds are available in some other cases. We do not give
refunds after July 31 unless additional criteria are met.

This website is packed with additional
information. We've tried to hit the high spots. But please do
explore. A good place to start would be the
Program Page and its links. Or browse the links above or return to
our home page table of contents. There is a
search function at the top of every page. &If you have suggestions on how we
can improve the site or the quality of the information you find here,
please drop us a line.